Colorado gubernatorial GOP primary getting crowded

At least five candidates are officially challenging Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2014 and another three are mulling whether to jump in the race .

That so many are choosing to challenge the popular governor is, Republicans contend, a sign that a Democrat who once seemed invincible is vulnerable.

State Sen. Greg Brophy of Wray, who hasn't made up his mind whether to enter the race, said Hickenlooper's backing of gun legislation during the 2013 session and concerns that he might halt the execution of a death-row inmate are some of the reasons Coloradans are frustrated.

"Everybody has figured out that Hickenlooper is not a moderate Democrat, but an East Coast liberal," Brophy said Tuesday. "Everybody is looking at this guy and saying someone is going to beat him next fall. The question is who is that going to be."

Hickenlooper was asked about the sudden display of Republican enthusiasm in a race some party leaders had written off just months earlier.

"They're not really excited," he said Tuesday. "They've sat around the campfire and figured out that they've got to act excited or they're not going to have any hope at all."

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The latest gubernatorial candidate to officially file his paperwork with the secretary of state is an East Coast Republican, Steve Laffey, a former Rhode Island mayor who moved his family to Fort Collins in the spring of 2010.

"Colorado was one of the last best places," Laffey said. "But it's been obvious in the last few months that the state is not going in the right direction."

He said he has been "blessed" with leadership skills that he used to make money in the investment world, and to turn around his hometown of Cranston, R.I., which was on the verge of bankruptcy when he was elected mayor.

Laffey ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006, losing the GOP nomination to Lincoln Chafee.

In his home state, Laffey is known for his brash, bold style of politics.

"It's a full-contact sport with Steve Laffey," said Ed Fitzpatrick, a political columnist with the Providence Journal.

Laffey initially filed to run against U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, a Democrat also up in 2014, but ultimately decided it wasn't the right race. He said he didn't want to be going back and forth to Washington.

In addition to Laffey, another Republican, two unaffiliated voters and a libertarian have filed paperwork to run for governor.

The libertarian, Matthew Hess, said no matter the candidate, the answer is not a Republican or a Democrat.

"There's a better, more positive way to benefit the people of Colorado, and that is by getting government out of their pocketbook and out of their lives," he said.

Jim Rundberg, a Republican from Moffat who is starting a telecommunications business, believes he has a chance of unseating the governor.

"I don't like his gun-control ideas," Rundberg said.

Hickenlooper said he "looks forward" to giving voters the "basic facts" on the gun bills he signed into law, including one requiring universal background checks.

"I talked to one of the more significant Republican donors in this state about universal background checks this afternoon, as a matter of fact. I could not have had more emphatic support," the governor said.

Hickenlooper said 1,300 people in 2012 tried to buy a gun who had been either convicted of or accused of felony assault, so expanding background checks to all buyers makes sense.

"The 420 people who had judicial restraining orders against them and tried to buy a gun and we stopped them, this is a partisan issue?" he said.

Hickenlooper, by the way, has not yet filed the paperwork for his 2014 run.